This invention relates to pill dispensers, and more particularly to automatic pill dispensers capable of dispensing pills having different prescribed administration schedules.
Improper administration of prescribed medication is reported to be the most common reason why some patients do not respond properly to the medical treatment. Patients often simply forget to take their medicine, and complications are sometimes brought on by patients who miss one or more pills and then attempt to "catch up" by taking more than the prescribed dosage. The difficulty in remembering when to take prescribed medication is greater when a patient is prescribed drugs of different types required to be taken at different times. Elderly patients frequently do not have sufficient mental alertness to keep track of the frequencies and dosages of their various medicines over a sustained period of time. Such patients also frequently suffer from impaired manual dexterity, which makes handling of individual tablets and capsules a difficult task which some patients consequently avoid, to their detriment.
Pill storage containers have been developed which hold a patient's supply of medicine and remind the patient when to take the medicine. Hicks et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 4,275,384, shows a portable medicine cabinet with a timer and individual compartments for pill containers. This device alerts the patient when the medicine in a particular canister should be taken, and the patient then physically removes the canister from the cabinet, determines the prescribed dosage and manually removes that dosage from the canister, repeating this process for each canister as often as pills are required to be taken from that canister.
Carlson, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,223,801, shows a multi-compartment container which can be filled with one day's requirement of prescribed drugs. Individual compartments are capable of holding pills of different types, and the individual compartments are illuminated when the pills therein are to be taken by the patient. The device is controlled by a timer and a reset switch which is depressed by the patient after taking the required medicine. This apparatus requires an individual to pick pills out of the compartments by hand. Further, this apparatus provides a reset switch which is more easily accessible than the pill storage compartments themselves, thereby providing a weary patient with the temptation of simply pressing the reset button to stop the alarm without taking the medicine.